Would a bright child do well at any school?

[stubiff]

Following on from my offer here

Question: Would a bright child do well at any school?

To provide information for you to make your own conclusions I wanted to look at:
Do similar pupils do better at Grammar/Selective schools.
Would similar pupils have the opportunity to do as well at an 'average' school.
Do similar pupils do worse at schools in disadvantaged areas.

Your gut reaction could be along the lines of - should do better at Grammars, could do as well at middling schools and would probably do worse at schools in deprived areas.

Data Source EPI
"Pupils attending a grammar school achieve, on average, one third of a grade higher in each of 8 GSCEs, compared with similar pupils in comprehensive schools"
"Pupils who attend grammar schools do no better than similar pupils in high performing comprehensives (those in the top 25% for value added)"

Data Source ffteducationdatalab page 26
"The child scoring highest at KS2 who goes onto a non-selective school outperforms their peer who ‘just’ passes their 11+"

Conclusion: pupils do better at Grammar but could do equally as well at decent non-selectives.

Data Source Ofsted
"Students eligible for free school meals, boys and White British students are not doing as well as other groups and make less progress from their starting points at the end of KS2."

Data Source Sutton Trust
"While high attainers overall make an average level of progress between KS2 and KS4, those from disadvantaged backgrounds fall substantially behind, with a Progress 8 score of -0.32."

Conclusion: disadvantage can have a big impact on attainment/progress.

Data Source Government
See attached graph where I created a subset of data from the Gov data. Data is school based rather than pupil based.
The plot is a bit of a splodge, rather than obviously bottom left to top right.

Conclusion: a pupil CAN attain the same progress regardless of the percentage of high prior attainers at the school.

parents who value education with a child in a deprived neighborhood can do lots of extra value work at home. they may know of a variety of ways to upgrade after secondary and still get into a good university.
or they themselves may be able to offer additional tutelage, or have interests that offer cultural capital.

“Note this is not saying that private is best, just demonstrating that school choice has an effect.”

Or it might demonstrate that parental support and focus, and economic comfort and security have an effect.

My Ds got a 9, an 8, 4xA* 4xA 2xB and a 6 at GCSE in a school with 45% FSM.

He is a diligent student and pretty self sufficient. I think his S London comp does well by all ability groups and all social groups.

Ds is 100% against the social segregation effect of Grammars and declined to go to one for 6th Form.

Currently awaiting results: predicted A A A

I think it's the child's peer group that has the most influence. I've known siblings of fairly equal early abilities but huge differences educationally in later years. One child had very lively friends that were not interested in school, the other had more serious, more focused friends that wanted to do well at school.

The underachieving daughter has now gone on to Further Education and is predicted a similar class of degree in a related subject to her sister.

I think having the right attitude makes all the difference.

I think a bright child, who is well motivated and has supportive parents will gain good qualifications at most schools.
However I still think they will do better in the right school, which for some would be a selective.

If you believe that they will do equally well at any school, then on the basis that you can see by the results that private/grammars on average do better, then you must believe the children going there, on average are more academic.

My df failed the 11+. He chose to stay in his secondary modern 6th form. He took his A-level maths at the same time as his teacher (getting a better grade too!) You can't think his results weren't effected by the standard of his teaching. He was capable of getting better results than he got.

Dm was at a local comprehensive when she was talking to them back in the 80s. They were the main catchment school in the area, most children went there and there was no grammar alternative. They would have had the full range of abilities. They told her they'd had a brilliant year in GCSE maths the previous year. Out of the year of 210, they'd had 3 grade A (before A*). It wasn't so much that was the result, so much as they were celebrating "brilliant results". If that's where their ambition was, they're not going to be pushing the children to achieve. Indeed, dm ended up tutoring one child from that school. When they started they were in set 5 (out of 7). 2 terms later they scored in the top 10 in the year for the exam.

a pupil CAN attain the same progress regardless of the percentage of high prior attainers at the school.
That's a fairly nebulous statement. What we want to know that a pupil will attain the same progress etc. The fact they can is irrelevant if most don't.

It's pointless telling people they "can" attain the same progress. I'm sure if I needed to, I "could" run a marathon. I'm also sure I won't manage to do it because I don't have the motivation to put the effort in.
If I was surrounded by a group who all wanted me to succeed and supported me, encouraged me out for training every day, checked in on me, suggested the right food, places to run, joined me etc. the chance of me succeeding would be far greater.
I would be the same me. I would have the same family at home who would regard it as slightly odd, but if I wanted to etc.

There is a fundamental flaw in your data bright doesn’t always result in strong academic performance. If a bright child is already struggling to thrive at their primary school then you’d have pretty much ignored them when drawing your conclusions. If anything most ‘bright’ people I know weren’t strong academic performers in early education. Your data tells us nothing about bright children at all.

The biggest issue facing many children is quality of teaching. If there is no maths teacher, the average parent cannot tutor. If the science curriculum isn’t completed or French is poorly taught, parents cannot make up the gaps if they don’t have the knowledge. Therefore, I believe intelligence is down to genetics but teaching makes the difference to grades. There is no substitute for high quality teaching. That’s why progress of all children is excellent in some schools and isn’t in others. Some have very many DC who underachieve. Most children are happy at a school where teaching is good, behaviour is good and leadership is good - even if the parents are not Einstein!

Why are there never threads obsessing about how middle or low attainers are doing? Why are we so focussed on the high attainers?

No, being bright doesn’t compensate for being bullied, having crap teachers, low budget and a low standard school. A bad school can knock the “brightness” out of any kid

I think because the people on MN tend to identify with the high achievers. Supposedly the MN population is far better educated than the general population is.

Sorry, that was to BertrandRussell

“Why are there never threads obsessing about how middle or low attainers are doing? Why are we so focussed on the high attainers?”

Well, there’s a question

I don’t think people are wholly honest with themselves when discussing education.

The middle children seem to be best catered for in today’s school system from what teachers have told me. There are lots of threads about how difficult it is to get support for children who struggle.

My op should have contained the following for the avoidance of doubt!

Caveats/Disclaimers:
'Doing well' = making the same (or very similar) progress at GCSE, regardless of school.
If I don't mention something that doesn't mean I don't think it's important.
I have deliberately not mentioned the happiness/softer side/less measurable side of 'doing well'. Feel free to debate that separately if you want.
The data is not my data, it is freely available on the web.
However, I have created the graph from Government data, using what I deemed to be 'similar' schools.
You need a baseline to measure progress, so by 'bright' the data means the Government's definition of high prior attainers. Obviously, children progress at different rates, bright children flop and some middle attainers flourish; we're talking averages here.
If you know of better data items to use then please suggest them rather than saying the data is flawed.
If you know of someone with access to the National Pupil Database, then get them to share the data!

Twins same school

DD exceptionally bright in top sets little disruption. Keen learner. Wants to achieve.

DS bottom sets lots of disruption (mainly him as he’s bright but dyslexic and bored)
Other kids also disruptive due to behaviour or some SEN - he has little chance of achieving. He’s in a hole he can’t get out of.

Bottom line - a good school doesn’t reflect the experince of all the children

@Witchend

"a pupil CAN attain the same progress regardless of the percentage of high prior attainers at the school."
That's a fairly nebulous statement. What we want to know that a pupil will attain the same progress etc. The fact they can is irrelevant if most don't.

It's not irrelevant.
If I put it a different way - the graph doesn't plot from bottom left to top right, i.e. that more progress is made, the 'better' the school (or they do worse at a 'worse' school). Meaning there is no evidence to say they definitely won't do as well.

The graph, therefore, shows that the same progress can be made/is achievable.
As has been mentioned, the attributes of the school, teachers, resources, disruption, peers and other factors will contribute to the progress made.
There are too many variables and lack of granular data to say that they 'will' make the same progress (using the 'average' school data).

@Witchend

The fact they can is irrelevant if most don't.

The graph probably shows, actually, that the majority make above average progress.

The graph probably shows, actually, that the majority make above average progress.

So, if true, this means that those with below average progress are doing very poorly indeed and perhaps should be excluded as extreme outlier in any definition of "average".

I don't think that graph is as obvious as you think.

What actually do they mean by "high achievers"? It seems to be those who achieved level 5 or above at SATS. Is that in all subjects, or just one? Because in each subject it's around 20% was getting grade 5in any one subject. Which means it will be less if you're looking at all three.
Which then begs the question of what schools have they looked at?

Because if you are taking a random selection of schools, I find it difficult to believe that the majority have 30%+ higher achievers, which is what you have here. Roughly it looks like of the schools used here around 50% have 50% "high achievers" or higher. Either this is looking disproportionally at selective schools or their definition of "high achieving" is somewhat low.

My dc are at a comprehensive that's considered to be "high performing". Dd1's year was considered to have a particularly strong top end. I don't think they would have considered even in that year 30% to be "high achievers". That would have been more than 3 forms worth.

But look again at the graph. The middle blot isn't that interesting as you can't see what that is actually doing. You'd need to expand it out to find if it is interesting.
Look at the schools where they achieved less than -0.5 progress. They're all less than 50% high achievers except one, and that's in the 50%-60%
Now look at the graph above 0.5 progress. If you look at that selection there is a definite upward line. Not a steep line, but a definite one all the same.

What you have here is a graph that shows that schools with high levels of high achievers entering the school (I would argue that any school with 30% of high achievers tend to produce high achievers with better than average progress.
What does that tell us? Not a lot. Schools with lots of high achievers tend to push their high achievers more?
Parents who support their children to get high results at KS2 continue to support them at secondary?
Children do better when surrounded by other children who are also high achievers?

What would be far more interesting to see would be to compare the graphs separately for comprehensives on one sheet and grammars/selectives on a separate one. On this graph we can't tell anything between the two. That would tell us far more whether there is a difference between selective improvement and non-selective.

But also that isn't the question you asked here. There question you actually asked was "Will a bright child do well at any school?" To answer that one correctly, you can't just look at the well-performing schools, you have to look at failed.com who thinks getting 5 GCSEs at grade 5 or above is a pie in the sky dream. What happens when they get a child who's achieved level 6 at GCSE across the board?

And your comment here:

Data Source ffteducationdatalab page 26
"The child scoring highest at KS2 who goes onto a non-selective school outperforms their peer who ‘just’ passes their 11+"

Conclusion: pupils do better at Grammar but could do equally as well at decent non-selectives.
That's not the conclusion I would draw. "A child does better when at the top of their class than the bottom", would be one possibility. Again though, you're not comparing like with like. The child who just passed may well already have been weaker. They could make more progress potentially than the child who sailed through their SATS.
You need to compare children who got the same results and similar backgrounds to reach a reasonable conclusion.

It's an interesting topic, but I don't think the data you're using actually gives the conclusions you have drawn.

@Witchend,

Have tried to highlight reports/data from a range, e.g. selective and disadvantaged, no?

If you want to draw a different conclusion then that's ok. That doesn't make my conclusion invalid. Unless you can provide the data which does.

@Witchend, @RedSkyLastNight,

Re the graph. I didn't put the rationale in originally as I thought it would be data overload, but doing that has caused some confusion!

As most reports/data is to do with high performers, selectivity, deprivation or disadvantage, i.e. the lower or upper ends, then I wanted to try to create something which showed the 'other' schools, what you may call average/middling, say.

The graph is of schools which I deemed as similar, not attainment or progress wise (that's why there is a large progress range), but where the P8 could be construed as being more accurate.
Don't forget that it also only includes schools which have a % of HPA.
(Whether people think what constitutes the HPA is correct/fair/whatever, I'm not getting into).
I looked at schools which had < 20% disadvantaged pupils, the average number of GCSEs taken >= 8, the number of filled Ebacc slots >= 2.9 and the number of filled Other slots >= 2.9.
I also excluded Selective (as defined by the Gov) schools.
That gives around 500 schools.

I appreciate, also, that the % of HPA in the school is a crude measure of 'ability' of a school, but for me the other measures have flaws.

For info, Selective schools would give a splodge mainly around 80%-100% (probably obviously) and the majority from 0-1 progress.

Some schools on the original graph, around 75/80% are classed by the Gov as non-selective, but are Grammars which partly select.

I'm not saying all this is correct, as to do it properly would mean access to the NPD (which average Joe doesn't have and we only have the Gov data to go on (which is only school based).

Some schools on the original graph, around 75/80% are classed by the Gov as non-selective, but are Grammars which partly select.

Should read - at the 75/80% mark on the graph, i.e. the ones with the highest % of HPA.

I was a bright child who went to a grammar school I loved, which was amalgamated into a comprehensive. I had stellar results at O level and left education immediately after, as did most of my classmates.

So demoralising, all the focus was on the under achievers and nobody was bothered about those who could get 5 grade Cs without intervention. More boring than any menial job I could get - so I opted out.

Fundamentally yes. If the school is at least reasonable. If they are happy. Supportive interested parents?

Ds1's school is very good. I'm happy. Ds2 is due to go there. It's My nearest comprehensive, but it's Catholic, strict, good reputation. My kids would do ok anywhere/most places probably.

Consider looking at percentage of prior high achievers subsequently achieving grade 5 for English and maths. Any decent school should be able to do this, but let’s out the elephant in the room, there are still way too many poor schools for you to assert that bright children can do well anywhere.
My local authority area has 9 secondary schools (no grammars). Only 5 get over 80% of those prior high achievers to grade 5 English and maths (3 in the 90s, 2 of which are catholic priority), 2 are in the 60%s, 2 are in the 40% range.
You can’t reasonably say that a bright child will do well at any school when there are schools where half or nearly half don’t make that level and that it is almost half the schools serving the same city! Parents quite rightly would have every right to be concerned about the chances their children will get at those schools.